A Culture Endangered: Depopulating the Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau

The following article by EDD was published on Human Rights in China 中国人权 (http://www.hrichina.org/crf/article/6136) on July 9, 2012

Overview: Melting Tibetan Plateau

With an average elevation of 4,500 meters, the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most distinctive land-features on earth. It occupies an area of 2.5 million square kilometers—more than one quarter of the size of China—and is the world’s highest and largest plateau in the world. For many generations, this Plateau has provided the basic necessities to sustain life, allowing human civilization to flourish beyond its vast border. The modern era now begins to acknowledge the significance of its strategic location for both developing peace and harmony within the region or conflict.

Grassland Degradation and Removal of Tibetan Pastoralists (Drogpas)

Tibet’s rangeland with an average altitude of 4500 meters, covers approximately 70% of Tibet’s total area. The Alpine grassland at high altitude occupies over 60% of the total rangeland in Tibet. Pastoralism on the Tibetan Plateau is an adaptation to a cold environment at elevations above the limit of cultivation. Consequently, pastoral nomads of Tibet have maintained a unique pastoral culture for more than 8000 years. Tibet’s grasslands represent one of the last remaining agropastoral regions in the world. The pasturelands are made habitable through the co-existence of the Tibetan people and their yaks. According to recent archaeological fieldwork, the Tibetan Plateau has been used extensively by pastoral nomads, who developed deep understanding of grassland dynamics and veterinary knowledge for close to 9,000 years.

The Last Of The Mogru Nomadic Clan (a documentary review)

The tourism boom in Mogru town of Tso Ngon region (Ch: Qinghai) has brought in new asphalt laden roads for the nomads so that they could ride faster on their horses to the nearest town! It even brought new faces from far across the mainland China along with their waste to litter at this holy lake of Tso Ngon. If not for these development activities that attracts regular visitors and tourists, the Mogru clans cannot afford in their natural lifetime to visit mainland China to meet and see those peoples wearing flashy clothes with headphones.

Watch the documentary from this link here: 

Diary of a Tibetan Nomad: the Last Page

Following is a fictitious |diary of a nomadic boy reflecting the impact of China's nomad resettlement program on the Tibetan nomadic lifestyle.

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At the age of 85, my grandmother suddenly grew weak and unhappy since moving into this concrete house few months back. She gazed at the faraway vast rangeland where small herds of yaks were grazing on the hills, gasped a long breath and whispered in her final voice "Why aren't we in the summer pasture?"

The joyful days of laughter echoing from the numerous holy peaks and valleys were gone. I remember once when father playing a flute while mother singing in her eloquent voice a song in praise of nature echoing from three different peaks, I was so amused and excited listening to their songs that I actually began to sing it thereafter.

The Significance of the Third Pole: The Tibetan Plateau

A satellite's-eye-view of the Tibetan Plateau. Image from NASA's Terra satellite. Photo credit- NASA

Tibetan Plateau referred to as ‘The Third Pole’ and ‘The Water Tower of Asia’ reflects the significance of its snow capped mountains and its alpine grasslands. Since time immemorial, the plateau holds the Hindu Kush Himalayan Ice Sheet, considered as the largest ice mass outside the two poles. Its plateau contains more than 45,000 glaciers covering an area of 105,000 km2. Encompassing an area of about 2.5 million square kilometers, or about one-third the area of the continental United States, the Tibetan Plateau is the largest and highest region on Earth. With an average elevation of 4,500 meters above sea level, the Tibetan Plateau stretches for almost 3,000 kilometers from west to east and 1,500 kilometers from south to north. The Plateau is ringed by high mountains – the Himalayas to the south, the Karakorum in the west and the Kunlun across the north. One can just learn by looking at its map to figure out how the Tibetan Plateau dominates the geography of Asia.